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Masters of Search episode 29: Why SEO agencies will struggle in 2026 | Nick LeRoy, Independent SEO Consultant cover art
EP 29·Feb 11, 2026

Why SEO agencies will struggle in 2026 | Nick LeRoy, Independent SEO Consultant

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Show notes

Seven years ago, Nick LeRoy got fired. Today, he runs one of SEO's most trusted newsletters with over 12.5k subscribers, operates SEOjobs.com with over 200k annual sessions, and consults with enterprise brands on SEO strategy that actually moves the needle.

Nick is an independent SEO consultant who helps enterprise brands turn SEO into a revenue-generating channel, not just a traffic report. He's also the mind behind SEOjobs.com and PPCjobs.com, connecting talent with opportunities, and publishes the #SEOForLunch newsletter, read by everyone from enterprise SEOs to Google employees themselves.

What makes Nick different? He'll tell you the uncomfortable truths most consultants won't. Like why your 5k/month retainer probably isn't working. Or why "organic visibility captures demand; it doesn't create it." Or why SEO alone won't save a business with a shitty product.

Check out these links if you want to learn more about Nick's work:

▶ Let's connect! 🔗 Niklas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-buschner/ Radyant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/radyant/ Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickleroyseo/

Transcript

Full conversation

via podigee
  • 00:00:00My wife and I had made it kind of an official agreement that if in six months I couldn't replicate what I was earning, working for somebody else, I needed to give it up because I work really well in boundaries.
  • 00:00:12Otherwise, I'll just be so dedicated and I'll drive myself nuts.
  • 00:00:16How do you actually work as a consultant?
  • 00:00:18So what's basically your operating model?
  • 00:00:21You can bleed me if you need to, but I tell people that my job is to get my clients the fuck out of their own way.
  • 00:00:27And what I mean by that, and most people would agree, is the larger the company, the stronger the politics are, and all that kind of junk that just goes on.
  • 00:00:39So I spend far more time advocating for the channel, advocating for teams.
  • 00:00:45Forcing mom to talk to dad and you know these people you don't kind of like.
  • 00:00:50so I do a lot more of that.
  • 00:00:52Do you think?
  • 00:00:52twenty twenty six would be a good or a bad year for SEO agencies?
  • 00:00:56So
  • 00:00:56now you're you're gonna definitely throw me in the hot seat because this is my hot take.
  • 00:01:01I think agencies are gonna really struggle in twenty twenty six.
  • 00:01:04So reason behind that is not because SEO is dead not because AI and LLMs are everything and anything in the future.
  • 00:01:11it comes down to one primary thing.
  • 00:01:16You could say that the chat GPT launch and everything that came after that and the AI overviews roll out and the traffic going down that this could be an awakening moment.
  • 00:01:27So if you were one of the agencies who are able to invest in testing, you know, time to learn and consume all this new information, you have the opportunity to truly stand out and you will be a top provider.
  • 00:01:41The problem is, is everything that I just mentioned is expensive either in time or getting the right individuals who are motivated to push themselves to that next level.
  • 00:01:52Because I have kind of come to this conclusion that good SEOs can't exist unless they have at least a certain level of passion
  • 00:02:03for the industry.
  • 00:02:09Each week, I sit down with some of the smartest people around the world in SEO and AI search to bring you their strategies, mental models and top pieces of actionable advice.
  • 00:02:19If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to like and subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.
  • 00:02:26It helps us get top-notch guests and create the best possible content for you.
  • 00:02:31Let's dive into today's episode.
  • 00:02:33Seven years ago, Nick Leroy got fired.
  • 00:02:37Today, he runs one of SEO's most trusted newsletters with over twelve thousand five hundred subscribers, operates SEOjobs.com with over two hundred thousand annual sessions and consults with enterprise brands on SEO strategy.
  • 00:02:53that actually moves the needle.
  • 00:02:55Nick is an independent SEO consultant who helps enterprise brands turn SEO into a revenue generating channel, not just a traffic report.
  • 00:03:03He's also the mind behind SEOjobs.com and PPCjobs.com connecting talent with opportunities and publishes the SEO for lunch newsletter read by everyone from enterprise SEOs to Google employees themselves.
  • 00:03:18So what makes Nick different?
  • 00:03:19He'll tell you the uncomfortable truth most consultants won't, like why your five K a month retainer probably isn't working or why organic visibility captures demand.
  • 00:03:31It doesn't create it or why SEO alone won't save a business with a shitty product.
  • 00:03:38I think there's a lot to dive into.
  • 00:03:40So welcome to the podcast, Nick.
  • 00:03:43Yeah.
  • 00:03:43Thank you so much for having me.
  • 00:03:44I think that's one of the kindest intro as I've received.
  • 00:03:47Yeah, I always try to make the end.
  • 00:03:49I always try to put a lot of emphasis on the intro as you usually do like with the hook on LinkedIn.
  • 00:03:56So I really, I really appreciate that feedback.
  • 00:04:00Let's start with the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey because I obviously had this little downer at the start with like you getting fired seven years ago.
  • 00:04:09You actually wrote yourself getting fired sucked, but it was also the start of everything that actually mattered.
  • 00:04:18Like we're super intriguing.
  • 00:04:19So take us with you through that phase.
  • 00:04:21Yeah, I mean, it's so true.
  • 00:04:24I tell people all the time that actively make a decision to like forego their paycheck to take an entrepreneurial route.
  • 00:04:33Like I have so much respect for those people because I kind of joked that I got pushed out the window and then I just landed on the entrepreneur world.
  • 00:04:41And going into that, as you had mentioned, I was actually let go twice.
  • 00:04:46From two different roles, you know, I, you know, seven, eight years ago had been dismissed from a role.
  • 00:04:52And then two years after that, I was leading a team and the company was impacted really hard with COVID.
  • 00:05:01And so my entire team got let go.
  • 00:05:03In fact, they let them go before they even told me.
  • 00:05:06And then I was given a thirty day runway to kind of wrap up the service.
  • 00:05:12And Honestly, the TLDR of the story is I always wanted to go out on my own, but I have a wife, I have three kids, health insurance in America is ungodly expensive, and it just never really felt like a good practical solution, even if that's what I wanted.
  • 00:05:36But so I always just did things on the side, you know, a little project here and there to push myself and learn.
  • 00:05:41But you know, nine to five is the day.
  • 00:05:45But what happened with this situation was, and I actually wrote about this, you know, Nick, I'll send you the link if you want to include in the show notes, you know, and it's basically documenting kind of this story that I'm giving you the heads up on.
  • 00:05:57But like I said, I got a thirty day runway.
  • 00:06:00Hey, you're losing your job in thirty days.
  • 00:06:02If you'll stick around and do this, great.
  • 00:06:05I started interviewing.
  • 00:06:06You know, you know how it goes.
  • 00:06:08Like you're.
  • 00:06:09talking in your industry, you're trying to figure things out.
  • 00:06:12And that was the first thing.
  • 00:06:13we'll talk about this later, but I hated every experience I had on like Indeed and LinkedIn and Zip Recruiter.
  • 00:06:21These big mammoth sites where you type in SEO into the search bar.
  • 00:06:27Sure, you'll get some SEO jobs, but you're also going to get Java developer where there's a bullet halfway down that says like, if they know SEO like bonus points.
  • 00:06:37So it just felt really unrelated.
  • 00:06:40But then through my own network, I was very fortunate to basically have two different job opportunities.
  • 00:06:46The first one was for a local large company, Fortune-Five Hundred here in Minnesota.
  • 00:06:54And I went through five interviews and I knew people on the team.
  • 00:06:58I was more than qualified for the position.
  • 00:07:01And then I was kind of shocked.
  • 00:07:02I got the phone call and they were like, yeah, thanks, but no thanks.
  • 00:07:06And what drove me crazy is I remember like kind of being heartbroken because I kind of had in my brain like figured out this is where I'm going to be.
  • 00:07:16But I asked her, I said, okay, I wasn't expecting that.
  • 00:07:20But what kind of feedback can you give me?
  • 00:07:21Like obviously I made it to the end.
  • 00:07:24I wasn't the right or the best option for you guys.
  • 00:07:28Like, can you give me something that I can take away?
  • 00:07:31And the response was, no.
  • 00:07:34Like we we don't share that stuff externally and so I'm just like flabbergasted and you know click and it's just like oh shit like what are we gonna do?
  • 00:07:46and It kind of just occurred to me You know through that interview.
  • 00:07:49and then I had one other interview that you know it went.
  • 00:07:53it was someone I had known we were Discussing kind of bridging a salary gap with ownership and his agency and it just really didn't go the the direction that either one of us saw as, you know, a real option.
  • 00:08:06So it was really at that point where I was just like, wow, like it's COVID, like none of the regular rules, you know, stand.
  • 00:08:16I think I've got to try this.
  • 00:08:20And I realized that I'm being very lengthy right here, but this is what was most important for me.
  • 00:08:26I had mentioned before, for many, many years, I had wanted to go out on my own, but I felt like I was irresponsible given the I actually felt like it was kind of selfish.
  • 00:08:36Like, you know, for me to prioritize, I tell people, it's one thing for me to eat ramen every night.
  • 00:08:41It's one thing for my wife and I to eat ramen.
  • 00:08:43We're committed to each other, but my kids didn't volunteer to come into this world eating ramen and, you know, scrambled eggs.
  • 00:08:51So what it came down to was my wife and I talked, I told her, I was like, I got to do this.
  • 00:08:58I was like, because it's the only way.
  • 00:09:01that I'm going to be a good employee again.
  • 00:09:04I have to do this and fail.
  • 00:09:07And then I can become a good employee because I've scratched that itch.
  • 00:09:11Or if it works, like even better, like then you get to own your own business, right?
  • 00:09:18And that brings us to today.
  • 00:09:19Fast forward, you know, six, seven years and, you know, fortunate enough to be joining you today.
  • 00:09:26I mean, in retrospect, if now it all makes sense and now we're talking from a point in time where you have already worked with some great companies and have achieved some great results.
  • 00:09:38We'll talk about that in a second.
  • 00:09:39But was there anything in terms of like mental model, mindset wise, etc.
  • 00:09:46that helped you push through?
  • 00:09:49Because I mean, it's something where it could also see people just be very desperate and like being this limbo of, okay, I'll I'll just try the next interview process and maybe it will work then and like not really moving any back and forth.
  • 00:10:06So what helped you?
  • 00:10:08I think, like I said, I had always wanted to go out on my own, but I will tell you now, I feel like I made more excuses for why I can't do it.
  • 00:10:19So it really felt like this was that shot.
  • 00:10:23You know, and it's like, I'm not trying to do the whole M&M thing.
  • 00:10:25You know, it's like, you know, one shot.
  • 00:10:27But that's really what it was.
  • 00:10:29It was like we are in a really, really unique situation with COVID.
  • 00:10:35There's very little to no cost with upstarts for like a consultancy position.
  • 00:10:42And so I just went all in.
  • 00:10:43And to be completely honest with you, I just took the mindset of like failure was not an option.
  • 00:10:51I checked my ego.
  • 00:10:52I came from agencies where I was working with the three, four, five largest clients.
  • 00:10:59they have overseeing a million dollars in book value and did it well.
  • 00:11:05Heck, even the part of the reason I got let go during COVID was simply because it was a million dollar plus annual contract that they didn't renew all because of COVID.
  • 00:11:18All that to be said, It was just, I wanted it to work so bad, and I was unwilling to compromise.
  • 00:11:27my children having what they need, my wife getting what she needs.
  • 00:11:32And that's nothing, you know, glamorous, but I just know it wasn't an option.
  • 00:11:37So, I'm sure we'll talk about it more, but I took all the work.
  • 00:11:41Like, you know, here I am being billed at five, six, seven hundred dollars an hour at these agencies in a senior, you know, team lead role.
  • 00:11:51And I'm working for fifty bucks an hour.
  • 00:11:53Like, and it's just one of those things.
  • 00:11:55It's like, again, here's ego and here's like feeding your family.
  • 00:11:59And when you have those two, it's really easy to, you know, drop one and raise the other.
  • 00:12:05You know, whereas if you are by yourself, you know, maybe like I said, you're the one eating ramen, not as big of a deal.
  • 00:12:13And maybe you lose a little bit of motivation because of it.
  • 00:12:17I have to add on that point that in Berlin, there are actually quite a few fancy ramen restaurants where you pay for a good bowl of ramen anywhere between like an equivalent to dollars, probably ten to fifteen dollars.
  • 00:12:32So I'm talking about the
  • 00:12:35bacon at home.
  • 00:12:36You know, it's like seventy cents here for a little brick of ramen is what I'm thinking back in my head.
  • 00:12:42Yeah, got it.
  • 00:12:43Yeah, I know there's also an equivalent to that product.
  • 00:12:45We just call it a little bit differently but I can't remember it.
  • 00:12:50Let's go down the route a little bit of these early days because now we're like a couple of years past and you already gave a little insight into working for like fifty bucks an hour and I also remember it from my early days as a freelancer like the pre-radient phase.
  • 00:13:10So like take us through maybe the first couple of month up until maybe the first year.
  • 00:13:16So how did it go?
  • 00:13:18Where also, where did you find work and like, have you been in any, in any sense selective in who you work with?
  • 00:13:26Yeah, I mean, I'm very fortunate.
  • 00:13:29I kind of lump my independent career into like three phases.
  • 00:13:35One was survive.
  • 00:13:37Two was thrive.
  • 00:13:40And then three is optimize.
  • 00:13:42And I feel very, very fortunate to be kind of in that third tier now.
  • 00:13:47But kind of going back to what you're saying, when it was survival, I mean, the thing that's the most scary as you know, it's like whether you have a big agency, you have, you know, by yourself, the money coming in today is only part of the equation.
  • 00:14:03Every owner, every entrepreneur has to think about the dollar tomorrow.
  • 00:14:07And that terrified me.
  • 00:14:10It was like, oh, great.
  • 00:14:11I made my paycheck because I used to have a spreadsheet.
  • 00:14:13that was literally what my annualized salary was previously broken up into twelve months.
  • 00:14:20And then I would sum up one of my earnings as a freelancer.
  • 00:14:24And my success metric was, did you hit that number or did you succeed or like exceed it?
  • 00:14:31But all of that to be said is, again, I checked the ego.
  • 00:14:36I was very, very fortunate that I had been so interested in SEO as a whole that kind of indirectly, I had always been a part of the industry online and made friends and started the newsletter.
  • 00:14:52And these were all things that I did purely out of passion.
  • 00:14:55And I was so fortunate I didn't never realize the value that I was building until I went out.
  • 00:15:03Because unlike many people who go out on their own, I had the benefit of like... I'm not kidding you.
  • 00:15:09I went to LinkedIn and you know, we have the like people you're connected with.
  • 00:15:13I went down the list and I took about fifteen names that either own their own company or were basically in a position to spend a company money and I sent them all a message and it basically was two things, you know, and remember this isn't the first time I've talked to them like I have relationships with them on some level or degree.
  • 00:15:34but the first thing I would say is One, I just went out on my own.
  • 00:15:40Do you have any feedback for me?
  • 00:15:42Like, I am a sponge right now.
  • 00:15:44I assume I know nothing.
  • 00:15:46And two, if you happen to come across an opportunity where you think I might be a good fit, please consider me.
  • 00:15:55And that started getting me, you know, some things.
  • 00:15:58You know, I have one buddy Trevor.
  • 00:16:00He's local here in Minnesota.
  • 00:16:02You know, we go out for dinner every couple of times a year.
  • 00:16:06I didn't really know it at the time, but like he paid me basically like five hundred bucks to like look at what he had done.
  • 00:16:14And at the time I was so focused on, you know, everything and anything, I'm not too good for anything.
  • 00:16:20You know, I thought I was providing value, whereas now it's like, I totally see it.
  • 00:16:23It's like a buddy's in a weird spot.
  • 00:16:26I'm just going to throw him five hundred bucks.
  • 00:16:28So it literally was everything and anything.
  • 00:16:32And I think.
  • 00:16:34I was saying this on a different podcast.
  • 00:16:35I think I had serviced like thirty two or thirty seven different clients in that first year because it was everything just from I had one whale client that I coincidentally had signed like two months before I had been let go.
  • 00:16:51So pure luck.
  • 00:16:53And then just like I said, the network really kind of filled me with small projects that added up and fast forward the rest of that calendar year.
  • 00:17:03And I deemed it a success because, one, I was still consulting.
  • 00:17:08My wife and I had made it kind of an official agreement that if in six months I couldn't replicate what I was earning, working for somebody else, I needed to give it up because I worked really well in boundaries.
  • 00:17:21Otherwise, I'll just be so dedicated and I'll drive myself nuts.
  • 00:17:26Makes total sense.
  • 00:17:26Let's sort a couple of things here because you mentioned the newsletter and that you already made a couple of like you already been part of the industry.
  • 00:17:35So when did you actually start the newsletter?
  • 00:17:37Because it sounds like you started it prior to going independent.
  • 00:17:41That's true.
  • 00:17:42So let's see.
  • 00:17:43I started SEO in two thousand nine and it was very quickly after that that I joined kind of the SEO industry because I was fortunate.
  • 00:17:55and it didn't feel like it at the time that the job that I was able to secure out of college was at a development, you know, web dev shop, and the owner was just sick of sending their finished projects to like SEOs to make more money.
  • 00:18:11But he didn't really believe in SEO enough to pay somebody who is experienced.
  • 00:18:16So my entire job was, hey, I'm going to give you a six month contract.
  • 00:18:21You need to self teach yourself SEO.
  • 00:18:24and then we'll see where you're at at six months.
  • 00:18:27So that required me to be active in Twitter when it used to be really good.
  • 00:18:34SEO chat used to be a great message board, all these opportunities.
  • 00:18:38So that's how I kind of got connected with the industry.
  • 00:18:41Fast forward maybe five years and because I was connected to the industry, I felt like I kind of had a pulse on the industry updates, like as they came in and I was regularly the person on the team that was saying, hey guys, check this out, you know, Barry Schwartz is writing this or, you know, Matt Cutts at the time, you know, you know, wrote this, you know, and it was just kind of an opportunity to be like, that's kind of how I set myself apart.
  • 00:19:13And so what I ended up doing, and I know, again, this is getting kind of long, but I started sending emails to my active clients.
  • 00:19:22Like once a week, once every two weeks, just be like, hey, here's what's going on in the industry.
  • 00:19:27Like here's your performance, but FYI, like what should you know?
  • 00:19:32And they loved it.
  • 00:19:34And then it turned into, oh, can I make sure that everybody on the team is in that distribution list?
  • 00:19:40And then it turned into the SEO for lunch, which was a weekly newsletter.
  • 00:19:47that just exclusively recapped the events that were happening in the industry, as well as just some like articles and blogging and videos that I thought was really cool from the industry.
  • 00:20:00And I did that for seven years, eight years almost.
  • 00:20:04Like it was four hundred issues, I think it was, before I pivoted to what it is today.
  • 00:20:10I think there's so much into that for people that are either thinking about going independent or that are maybe still like in their early phase.
  • 00:20:21So for you, it might sound kind of trivial when you're telling the story, but I also know a couple of people that are still pretty early in their freelance journey and so I highly recommend them, like if you're listening to this, like go back to the start and listen to it again so you can actively like take notes from there.
  • 00:20:44I also once had a client who told me, and I think this draws perfectly on your, um, hey, FYI, here's what's going on.
  • 00:20:53Um, sorry.
  • 00:20:54He once told me most people hire agencies just to do things for them.
  • 00:21:00So they were basically, the client is basically one step ahead of the agency because.
  • 00:21:04The client tells the agency what to do, but he always wanted to have an agency to be one step before the client.
  • 00:21:10So exactly what you said, you should be my eyes and ears out in the market, explore the opportunities for me.
  • 00:21:17So do you also feel like this mindset that you obviously had for years already is part of why you then also have been so successful in consulting big enterprise clients as in your independent role?
  • 00:21:34Yep, without a doubt.
  • 00:21:35And I don't tell this story, but this is kind of like the unofficial, what nudged me to start sending the emails.
  • 00:21:42I was in a call with a client and they said, hey, Nick, I heard about X update.
  • 00:21:49What can you tell me about it?
  • 00:21:50And I didn't know.
  • 00:21:52And I felt so embarrassed and it wasn't about, you know, I didn't, I couldn't just like get through the conversation, but it was that mindset of, wow, you guys are paying us so much money.
  • 00:22:03If you are hearing this news, very likely you're not on top of the market, so it's already been around for a little bit.
  • 00:22:12And if I, as your SEO provider, can't give you at least a high-level overview and be like, hey, I'll follow up with some links and resources if you're really interested, that was just kind of a gut punch to me.
  • 00:22:26And that is partially because, again, I'm very passionate about the SEO space, so when someone knows something that I don't, I get competitive.
  • 00:22:33It's like, whoa, hook me up.
  • 00:22:35I need this.
  • 00:22:36And, you know, so that's what I do now.
  • 00:22:39And I think a lot of my clients value me because to this day, especially with like Slack and Teams and whatnot, I'm always sending little notes.
  • 00:22:49You know, it's like, hey, look, this was published by Google and reaffirms what we are prioritizing.
  • 00:22:56You know, just like all these things, you know, especially with AI and LLMs right now, it's like, Hey, we only know what we know, but we're going to learn together.
  • 00:23:08And I just think there's a lot of credibility you build when you don't try to be the master from end to end.
  • 00:23:14You know, it's like, I hate the word expert more than anything, especially in this field.
  • 00:23:20But I think the true experts are the ones that are willing to raise their hand and say, I don't know, I'm going to figure that out and get back to you.
  • 00:23:28We already talked about your clients without ever naming someone, so can you maybe share just a couple of companies you've already had the chance to work with?
  • 00:23:40Yeah, I've been very fortunate.
  • 00:23:42Since I've gone out on my own, I've been able to work with some really big companies.
  • 00:23:47For example, Sapa.com is a leader in selling mattresses.
  • 00:23:53And for anyone who's ever done like the affiliate space like you would be shocked at how competitive mattresses are.
  • 00:24:00But I've worked with q-reg so that was really fun.
  • 00:24:04You know the built-in was a great marketplace that I was able to work with.
  • 00:24:09Let's see apartments.com was really early.
  • 00:24:12That was a referral from my friend Marie Haynes.
  • 00:24:15You know that really helped me out early.
  • 00:24:18Yeah, and then I'm trying to think of other ones like.
  • 00:24:21I'm trying to think of what's kind of like unique.
  • 00:24:25I worked for Sun Country.
  • 00:24:26Like that was a really interesting airlines because there's all sorts of regulations and stuff like that.
  • 00:24:31But again, it's just kind of some really big brands, but all over the place.
  • 00:24:36It was just really fun to learn their industries.
  • 00:24:40And as you know, there's a fortunate benefit of like enterprise.
  • 00:24:46It takes forever for things to get executed.
  • 00:24:50But when you do, even like a one or two percent increase in performance can be hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.
  • 00:24:58Let's tap into that a little bit because as you rightfully said, enterprise can take a long time to actually implement things.
  • 00:25:06So how do you actually work as a consultant?
  • 00:25:10So what's basically your operating model, if you want to say so?
  • 00:25:16You can bleed me if you need to, but I tell people that my job is to get my clients the fuck out of their own way.
  • 00:25:23And what I mean by that, and most people would agree, is the larger the company, the stronger the politics are, and all that kind of junk that just goes on.
  • 00:25:35So I spend far more time advocating for the channel.
  • 00:25:40They came for teams forcing mom to talk to dad and you know these people you don't kind of like.
  • 00:25:46so I do a lot more of that.
  • 00:25:49and Nick where you'll think is interesting is I get people that are like What do you do for an enterprise client for SEO?
  • 00:25:56and they think it's just like this wizardry that gets unlocked when you go above like five hundred thousand pages and My response to them is probably a lot less than you do.
  • 00:26:06for you know the mom and pop shops because you get access to WordPress, whereas I have had clients that have like three releases in a year, and I'm lucky if I can get SEO points in two of them.
  • 00:26:21And these are things like basic canonicals, getting your titles metadata correct, nothing exciting.
  • 00:26:28But again, when you can make those changes at the scale of these sites, the return is very, very clear.
  • 00:26:40And what would you say, how is the consultant model, for example, different to an agency model and then to in-house SEO roles?
  • 00:26:51So why does a company and what is the situation a company is usually in when they're looking for a consultant?
  • 00:27:00So what I, the, how do I say this?
  • 00:27:03The way that I've kind of interpreted that, and I love that question, because I think ultimately we all have the same goal.
  • 00:27:11What I would say the differences are is the restrictions that we have in each of these rules.
  • 00:27:18And what I mean by that is somebody who's in house is already deeply entangled with like the politics.
  • 00:27:26So if they're trying to, you know, bust through that or do something new, they're inherently is just that.
  • 00:27:33battle of.
  • 00:27:35internal ideas are less valuable than like a consultant.
  • 00:27:40I think a lot of us have been in a situation where we've been pushing this idea for what feels like years.
  • 00:27:47They hire an outside consultant.
  • 00:27:49They say more or less the same thing, execute it, and then, bam, like, the consultant looks awesome.
  • 00:27:56On the other side, agency, and again, I came exclusively from an agency background before I went out on my own.
  • 00:28:03I think it's very similar to independent consulting.
  • 00:28:10with one difference.
  • 00:28:13You always as an agency consultant, if you will, have to, in the back of your mind, think about is everything that you're doing beneficial to the agency that employs me.
  • 00:28:28And that's where I really rub people the wrong way, because I had no problem telling people that they're spending too much money.
  • 00:28:36They don't need this.
  • 00:28:38You know, this isn't working.
  • 00:28:40All things that make me a really good consultant today because I build a lot of trust and credibility with my clients.
  • 00:28:48But from an agency perspective, when they're looking at their P&L and they see Nick like taking chunks of cash right out of it, it's not necessarily as great.
  • 00:29:00So I think those are really kind of the two differences between those positions.
  • 00:29:04And I would just say as a consultant, you get to create that narrative, you get to decide what's important, you get to decide what you say, and like you can take your own calculated risks.
  • 00:29:16And there are times where I call CMOs out and obviously not like in front of their teams and I try to be as respectful as possible, but I will tell them with all due respect, you're not paying me to just say yes.
  • 00:29:31Like I'm a very expensive yes man if that's what you want.
  • 00:29:35So, and it's like sometimes with leaders, it's like they just need that little bit of shock value of just being like, we, you're not talking down to me as a contractor.
  • 00:29:44We're talking eye to eye as partners with the same goal of lifting your company.
  • 00:29:52And that is the power of being independent.
  • 00:29:57And I've also told people before, and this isn't to try to paint myself in a good light, but I've told CMOs, The reason that I'm telling you that I'm not a yes man is because I am not reliant on your sole payment this month to feed my family and what that allows me to do is be pickier.
  • 00:30:16I can be direct and if it doesn't work like then I have an opportunity for new work and Most of the time it just re situates the whole situation.
  • 00:30:28and again when you're talking as kind of equals per se It's a far more productive than when you are nervous and trying to kind of appease mom or dad.
  • 00:30:40Let's talk agencies a little bit more because I know you have put a lot of thought into the agency model and how agencies operate.
  • 00:30:50Do you think twenty twenty six will be a good or a bad year for SEO agencies?
  • 00:30:56So now you're gonna definitely throw me in the hot seat because this is my hot take.
  • 00:31:02Maybe.
  • 00:31:03I think agencies are going to really struggle in twenty twenty six.
  • 00:31:07The reason behind that is not because SEO is dead, not because AI and LLMs are everything and anything in the future.
  • 00:31:16It comes down to one primary thing.
  • 00:31:21It historically has been very easy to set up an SOP like standard operating procedures and then just kind of hire warm bodies to execute it.
  • 00:31:34like you had to get that work done.
  • 00:31:37And we as an SEO industry could expect reasonable returns from what I would kind of call that SOP or checkbox.
  • 00:31:45SEO is what I always call it.
  • 00:31:47And I think the world that we're in now, checkbox SEO is table stakes, meaning if you don't have that, you're far more at risk of losing what you had, let alone trying to grow upon it.
  • 00:32:04And one of the things that I find that happens with agencies is, and don't take this as anti-agency, I have some buddies that run agencies and I think they do all the right things, but there are other ones that the sole purpose is to make money and to be as profitable as possible.
  • 00:32:22And when you do that, the expense is individuals who are consulting or doing the work that just don't have the reps, they don't have the experience.
  • 00:32:35And I think what that's going to do in twenty twenty six and beyond is it's going to separate those who are really good at SEO from those who are really good at operating an SOP or checkbox.
  • 00:32:49And the gap is going to widen.
  • 00:32:53This side, which is good, is going to become even more expensive.
  • 00:32:58Agencies that are looking just to like get as much money as they can with the least amount of expense.
  • 00:33:05aren't going to pay these people.
  • 00:33:08They're very likely going to wrap up and I suspect they'll move to either the next bad, which will be like AILM optimization, or whatever Bitcoin equivalent is for marketing that year.
  • 00:33:26But why do you think agencies tend to be so sluggish in adapting and then changing?
  • 00:33:32Because, I mean, there has been.
  • 00:33:39You could say that the chat GPT lounge and everything that came after that and the AI overviews roll out and the traffic going down for some, that this could be an awakening moment.
  • 00:33:52Yeah, and I think that is a really good question that allows me to clarify kind of everything that I had said before.
  • 00:33:59I think there's a very fine line in the middle of kind of when we define agencies.
  • 00:34:05there is the part that I think will struggle because of everything that I just said.
  • 00:34:10And then I think those on the other side of it actually benefit and provide the most value.
  • 00:34:16Because the biggest selling point of being an agency is I'm not looking at just your site every day.
  • 00:34:24I have a portfolio.
  • 00:34:26I know what this industry looks like, you know, for many, many touch points.
  • 00:34:31So if you are one of the agencies who are able to invest in testing, you know, time to learn and consume all this new information, like you have the opportunity to truly stand out and you will be, you know, a top provider.
  • 00:34:48The problem is, is everything that I just mentioned is expensive either in time or getting the right individuals who are motivated to push themselves to that next level.
  • 00:35:02Because I have kind of come to this conclusion that good SEOs can't exist unless they have at least a certain level of passion for the industry.
  • 00:35:15And I don't mean that you have to be like me and, you know, do a newsletter and SEO jobs like I'm just like too far over to get back.
  • 00:35:24But you shouldn't, like you should be curious.
  • 00:35:29Like if there is an algorithm update that's actively rolling out right now and you're at home and you're just kind of watching Netflix and you see like you got tagged on Twitter or whatever and it's just like, hey, we've got new data.
  • 00:35:44Like do you pull your phone on it and you just like kind of quickly look at it?
  • 00:35:47Or do you truly just be like, nope, like work-life balance, you know, which I totally respect.
  • 00:35:53I just don't see digital marketing as a place that you can strictly nine to five.
  • 00:36:02And a lot of people disagree and they get very angry with me for saying that because it's not about, can you do good work?
  • 00:36:09It's just what you had said.
  • 00:36:11How can you be the one that's on the cutting edge and always learning?
  • 00:36:17Because the last thing that I'll kind of add with that is, especially last year, I was even in a kind of a dark place thinking, Holy cow, is SEO actually dead?
  • 00:36:28The skill set that I've been investing fifteen years in, is it going to be relevant in two years?
  • 00:36:34And where I was able to kind of like get to is the best example I have is calligraphy.
  • 00:36:42You know, people that do fancy writing, nobody like pays for that, but yet the best of the best are still getting business.
  • 00:36:52And that was kind of my mindset.
  • 00:36:54and it's not because I truly thought SEO was going to die.
  • 00:36:57It was just more of a, okay, wake up.
  • 00:37:00Like this is how we're going to add a little fire to yourself because we're going to step up and we're going to do even more.
  • 00:37:08Maybe drawing on that for people that are just listening to that and do not watch the video.
  • 00:37:14Nick has a Vikings like two Vikings posters behind him on the wall and you will not often hear a guy from Europe do a football metaphor.
  • 00:37:25but here it comes.
  • 00:37:26So you probably also will never have the chance to make it to the NFL if you just go to the football training because mom and dad.
  • 00:37:35told you so, but you will only make it if you have so much passion that you actually want to stay on the field up until the lights go out, right?
  • 00:37:44Without a doubt.
  • 00:37:45I used to always tell people that, you know, I'm not in a position anymore where I'm hiring people on my team, but when I was hiring, especially the more junior you were, I tried to get, like I'd ask you softball questions to tell me something like you're passionate about.
  • 00:38:02and I'd be very clear.
  • 00:38:03It's like, I'm not saying, tell me you love everything about SEO.
  • 00:38:06If you love playing the guitar, tell me everything you love about, if you love swimming, you love traveling, because what I wanted to see was like, is this person capable of like being passionate?
  • 00:38:16Can they go deep on something that they decide is important?
  • 00:38:21And I don't see it very often, but I will hire somebody who knows very little to know SEO, who can show me the ability to be passionate, and effectively communicate because those two skills like you cannot teach.
  • 00:38:37I can teach you SEO, I'll give you fifteen years of knowledge, give me two and a half years, I'll give it to you all.
  • 00:38:44But you have to want to receive it, you want to be good, and you have to be curious.
  • 00:38:49Yeah, quick shout out on that note to my friend Andy months who has also been on the pot already.
  • 00:38:55He's head of AO at Telnix and he introduced me to the concept of the airport test for hiring.
  • 00:39:02He's also actually a high school football coach or he was a high school football coach.
  • 00:39:06So he also talks a lot about camaraderie and all of that.
  • 00:39:10but his test is basically can you imagine if you hop on a flight and then you basically go through transit and the next flight is delayed and you have to sit an hour with the person like in front of the gate.
  • 00:39:25Will it be awkward or will you have something to talk about?
  • 00:39:29and will also the other person be like inspiring and passionate about something?
  • 00:39:33and I feel like it totally fits the picture that you just outlined.
  • 00:39:38I
  • 00:39:39love that you said that.
  • 00:39:41I obviously won't say any names, but... There was one point where I had hired somebody and we were talking and their answers were pristine.
  • 00:39:53Like literally.
  • 00:39:54if they could take the words out of my mouth and say them, that's what they said.
  • 00:39:59But I just didn't feel like we clicked.
  • 00:40:02Like it was just like, felt like we were just, you know, just like you said, if we were sitting at an airport, we would definitely be on, you know, our phones.
  • 00:40:12We'd be going and using the restaurant wherever.
  • 00:40:14so this person was brilliant.
  • 00:40:15They absolutely knew their SEO.
  • 00:40:17But the fact that there just wasn't comradity there wasn't an ability to kind of work as a team That that's a huge factor that I think a lot of people greatly like.
  • 00:40:30Undervalue hmm
  • 00:40:32and to add to that so I obviously we only operate at least now a small boutique agency, but I at least had the chance over the course of my career to hire around thirty people and I would say most of the decisions were good.
  • 00:40:50but with one decision I was really struggling.
  • 00:40:52I had this exact feeling of ah is there really like a fit?
  • 00:40:56and then we still went for it.
  • 00:40:58but honestly over the course of one and a half almost two years.
  • 00:41:03it's just it cost more and more and more problems and then at some point I just felt like man.
  • 00:41:08you should have trusted yourself.
  • 00:41:09So for everybody listening or watching, if you have this feeling and if you have to make these decisions, I would rather say, do yourself and the person you see as a candidate a favor and rather turn down the offer or do not make an offer instead of hiring someone and then three, four months in the job, feel the sense of disconnection and then have to somehow get rid of the person on the team.
  • 00:41:35Obviously, this is like we're talking about People exist and etc.
  • 00:41:39here, so I don't want to take this lightly.
  • 00:41:41But in the end, a team at a workplace is, I think, in a lot of aspects pretty similar to a team in sports.
  • 00:41:51And in a team in sports, sometimes people go out of the field and it's just what happens because you have to have the best team on the pitch to win the game.
  • 00:42:02At least if you want to play to win, if you just play to play, totally fine.
  • 00:42:08I think most companies actually want to win their category.
  • 00:42:11So I heard only after I was let go from this one agency that leadership had their team.
  • 00:42:20And what they used to do is they would plot people on a chart.
  • 00:42:24And maybe you know about this one.
  • 00:42:26Like the Y axis would be like your talent, zero to a hundred.
  • 00:42:32And then the X axis would be like zero to a hundred.
  • 00:42:35Like how much friction.
  • 00:42:37Like do you provide on your team?
  • 00:42:41And it was funny because in my mindset, like just to be clear, I was up and to the right.
  • 00:42:48So talented, but a pain they asked to work with.
  • 00:42:52And in my, I always thought there is always room for someone who's a rock star that rocks the boat.
  • 00:43:01And in reality, like there really isn't.
  • 00:43:05And to your point, Nick, that individual that I had mentioned before, I thought I was always a good manager or director for people that wanted to learn and were showing progress and succeed.
  • 00:43:19I was a horrible leader for people that didn't care and just kind of skated by.
  • 00:43:27And just everything that you had said, it was a nightmare with this individual because I was just dedicated to... Making them care making them want to do all this stuff and to the point where it's like by the time Decisions have been made to part different ways Like I was sick to my stomach like I literally had to leave the office and like Walk around because it just was such a disjointed experience for everybody from beginning to the end and That was kind of my tell.
  • 00:44:00that was like I have some opportunity to learn here from a leadership perspective.
  • 00:44:05That's the part that I don't miss.
  • 00:44:08You'll be an odd on my own.
  • 00:44:11Let's talk about a topic that has actually been, I would say, somehow talk of the town for at least the last one and a half, maybe two years.
  • 00:44:25What should SEO actually drive?
  • 00:44:27So should it drive traffic, should it drive visibility, should it drive rankings?
  • 00:44:31And as I said in the intro, you're also someone that is passionate about turning SEO into a channel that is revenue generating, that is tied to critical business outcomes.
  • 00:44:43And I think also a lot of the people that are really respected in the industry, as you are, have this mindset.
  • 00:44:51So my question is, How do you see it like in the industry as a whole, has everybody already landed on this new reality?
  • 00:45:01Or is there still like traffic?
  • 00:45:05Are there still slides where traffic growth is being reported as a KPI?
  • 00:45:11I think people as a whole, we don't actively want to do bad work and we don't want to make people upset or disappoint people.
  • 00:45:22So we come up with performance narratives that support the idea of progress.
  • 00:45:29And I think that's where kind of like the impressions come by, the rankings come by, the sessions, because that all paints a picture that I am doing something, and in exchange, things are going up and to the right.
  • 00:45:46Now, I'm not saying that I've never done those, but I'm gonna... put an asterisk here because my opinion has changed, but my historical answer was revenue is the only thing that matters.
  • 00:46:00SEO, whether we like it or not, we'll touch on this later, is in performance marketing.
  • 00:46:05Whether we want to emit it or not, the CMO, the CEO, all the leaderships, she's treating SEO results the same way that she is treating paid search.
  • 00:46:17And it's a very small scale in comparison.
  • 00:46:20but I've never met anybody who isn't.
  • 00:46:24So, I was on a panel at SMX last year and somebody asked that question and it was something along the lines of like sessions and impressions.
  • 00:46:34Like, what do you think?
  • 00:46:36My answer was, I will start caring about those when my electric company allows me to pay my bill in sessions and impressions.
  • 00:46:47And I kind of caught some people off guard with that.
  • 00:46:51But I mean that's how I firmly believe especially as like a performance marketer and I think a lot of people Should approach that now.
  • 00:46:59there's a lot of caveats to that but I would love To be in a situation where revenue is up year over year and traffic is down year over year because I could fight that narrative all day long.
  • 00:47:13Now what I will say is this is the asterisk so that is nick of yesterday and it's kind of biting me in the butt a little bit because I am even challenging people now that maybe we've been measuring SEO wrong this whole time.
  • 00:47:31And what I mean by that is historically with let's just assume the attribution is fair and accurate, which it's not.
  • 00:47:41But we could drop down into like default channel, organic search, and those are your numbers.
  • 00:47:48and that felt fairly reliable and accurate.
  • 00:47:53We are not in that world anymore.
  • 00:47:55Like with AIOs, with all these individual LLMs, with YouTube, with Reddit, I mean, all these things, that ecosystem of how people search used to be kind of a one-to-one relationship of people going to Google.
  • 00:48:11We do the search, we land on the site, and we purchase or we don't, or let's just call it take action.
  • 00:48:18Now, it's not that ridiculous to think of a situation where I was on TikTok and this brand kind of had a cool, goofy ad.
  • 00:48:28So then I went to Google and it's like, okay, they are a site.
  • 00:48:32But then I went back and it's like, I trust Reddit because those are real people and they have no problem telling people that it's a garbage company if that's the case.
  • 00:48:42Then I read a couple best articles that we know are affiliate sites.
  • 00:48:47But then we go back and we type in website.com.
  • 00:48:52So, Nick, who gets credit for that?
  • 00:48:56You tell me.
  • 00:48:57Yeah.
  • 00:48:58Well, and I don't have the answer.
  • 00:48:59So, you know, some people would say, TikTok should, whatever that first touch was.
  • 00:49:06Most of our reporting, most people will do like last touch attribution, which means that sale, that session, that user is now mapped to direct.
  • 00:49:17which is the bucket we know the least amount about.
  • 00:49:22So all that being said, what if SEO wasn't deemed a performance marketing channel?
  • 00:49:33And where I'm kind of challenging some CMOs and they all laugh because they know that I'm potentially right, but nobody's ever going to break the habit.
  • 00:49:46What if we looked at SEO as a lever within brand marketing.
  • 00:49:54For anybody that hasn't worked with a PR team or traditional ads, their KPIs are a lot softer.
  • 00:50:03And what I mean by that is they typically report on placements, and then they'll use third-party tools, think of, well, any of them, that will just kind of give an estimate of how much traffic they get every single month.
  • 00:50:19So then what they're ultimately reporting on is placements and eyeballs.
  • 00:50:26So for me, it's like if we're trying to translate that into SEO and LLM world is that Impressions equals eyeballs?
  • 00:50:40Guess, you know, that's a situation where I'd have to eat a little bit of crow.
  • 00:50:43because I guess in that situation I get paid for impressions, you know, and then I could pay my electrophil.
  • 00:50:49but placements like If I track citations and mentions, is that the same thing?
  • 00:50:57If I get a link from a site or I'm getting referral traffic or the YouTube video is now sending people back, is that valuable?
  • 00:51:09Because in performance marketing, everything of yesterday, none of that counts.
  • 00:51:15Nick, the best example I want to give you for this is we've all been asked this question.
  • 00:51:22Client comes in they sit down with Nick and they're like Nick our videos good for SEO and Then we kind of sit there and we're like Well, no, like it's not the basis of a video on your page But if you created a really badass video like that could be Engaging and lifted up but also like no because it's truly hosted on YouTube so they could rank.
  • 00:51:49you know, it's just like this very convoluted question and I think where and what that did is like.
  • 00:51:58it hurt us because we never were collaborating with other teams and or other efforts that kind of lived outside of our websites ecosystem.
  • 00:52:09And if SEO is viewed as like brand marketing or just building the brand overall, I think that kind of removes that expectation.
  • 00:52:22Because then when we talk about visibility, citations, mentions, impressions, you know, rankings, gotta hate rankings, but... You know, all that kind of stuff, you know, then those, what I would call secondary or tertiary KPIs become the primary success metric because we are building a brand and we're making it so that you are discoverable.
  • 00:52:50And then all these KPIs can just literally support this idea of is the company succeeding as a whole, then SEO is playing a role in that, similar to how they define is PR providing value.
  • 00:53:06Because most leaders, he or she would not necessarily be like, I gave you a million dollar budget.
  • 00:53:13Where's my four to one return?
  • 00:53:15And because every PR team would be like, you got eight million eyeballs, which doesn't work.
  • 00:53:21But leadership somehow has lumped PR into kind of like the fixed branding cost.
  • 00:53:30And I just wonder if there is a middle ground between performance marketing and branding.
  • 00:53:38And what I am referring to it with my clients is kind of like SEO plus reporting.
  • 00:53:44And what that means is as attribution is becoming far more foggier because of that ecosystem expanding, our KPIs that we traditionally relied on for success are decreasing.
  • 00:53:58But let's still acknowledge that.
  • 00:53:59You are paying for SEO, so this is what we know absolutely without a doubt, your value.
  • 00:54:08And then can we just have the plus all this?
  • 00:54:12Again, I can't give you an exact number, but let's just say that again, if we're using an example from paid search, I need a four to one return for me to be able to get my budget next year.
  • 00:54:24If I can quantify three to one, And then I say you got all this other stuff and the company had a record year.
  • 00:54:33If you're a leader, can you kind of go?
  • 00:54:35I can see a world where that makes up for one of the points.
  • 00:54:40Again, like I said, I could talk about that all day long.
  • 00:54:44I think that that is the direction it could go.
  • 00:54:50But I also think the day that we say like money is not the primary KPI is the day that SEO services kind of take a hit in quality because I think the game is just different.
  • 00:55:02then.
  • 00:55:04but do you have a specific measurement or like KPI framework that you implement for your clients?
  • 00:55:13so other specific like levels of importance so between citations and mentions and then traffic.
  • 00:55:23or then like other metrics, maybe revenue, maybe pipeline contribution.
  • 00:55:29I don't know.
  • 00:55:29Can you take us a little bit behind the scenes with you to like at least metrics where you feel like, hey, there you have a strong sense that they actually matter?
  • 00:55:40Absolutely.
  • 00:55:42So I'll profess by saying that every industry is a little bit different.
  • 00:55:49what I'm gonna say for an e-commerce site is obviously gonna be different from a SaaS company.
  • 00:55:55But I'm a big fan of having tiered KPIs.
  • 00:55:59And what I mean is like tier one, think of it as like a triangle.
  • 00:56:02Like the only thing that matters in tier one is revenue.
  • 00:56:05And then you get to tier two and maybe that is sessions and impressions and page views and downloads of whatever widgets you're creating.
  • 00:56:19Tier three is ranking, you know, I don't even know, something along those lines.
  • 00:56:25Like let's just like another thing that kind of supports again that narrative that it's going up and to the right.
  • 00:56:31And then what I like to do is then just kind of map how, like what's the narrative?
  • 00:56:38Like provide data to support the narrative.
  • 00:56:41Don't be like, we're up seven percent year over year.
  • 00:56:45That's it.
  • 00:56:46Keep in mind, like if you were in the leader's seat, like what would she ask you for?
  • 00:56:53And now try to answer those questions.
  • 00:56:55So if I'm coming to the table and saying, we're up seven percent in organic revenue, I'm going to follow up and be like, and that is led by an increase of the homepage, and also our products as like a category, our collections, and our blog, and I kind of break it down.
  • 00:57:17And then that way, I'm going to get that question that all leaders like to do because, again, they're thinking of us like paid media.
  • 00:57:22They go, oh, wow, the blog's exploding.
  • 00:57:25That's super cool.
  • 00:57:26If I give you a hundred thousand dollars right now, can you like ten X it?
  • 00:57:30And you're like, no, don't work that way.
  • 00:57:33But what it does is it allows that conversation.
  • 00:57:36Like it's not because the biggest issue that we have as an industry and it's only getting worse with AI and LLM is.
  • 00:57:45We have done a huge disservice to ourselves by embracing this like SEO lives in a black box.
  • 00:57:52And we all know and we've all done this because we work magic.
  • 00:57:58I mean, people, you say, you need to do all of this.
  • 00:58:02And that's how SEO like transforms your business.
  • 00:58:06And then they make every excuse for why they don't do it and it never gets done.
  • 00:58:10So you go out and you buy some links or, you know, you just start, you know, spamming, you know, these blog posts and it makes those secondary metrics go up and to the right.
  • 00:58:22And then it makes it seem like, great, well, I hired an SEO and they, you know, did the wand and it's great.
  • 00:58:28And because again, let's compare that to paid media, that's kind of how it works.
  • 00:58:33I give you a check, you give me a check back, that's bigger.
  • 00:58:37So that is... kind of how I'm always approaching, like how do I measure SEO?
  • 00:58:44The other thing, and I won't go too deep into this, is I love the idea of like assisted conversions.
  • 00:58:53So this is a situation where it's like now we're dealing with, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
  • 00:58:59And instead of trying to be like, Well, you know, they did come in the blog, but they left and paid search retargeted them, so shouldn't I get some credit?
  • 00:59:08Like, to me, what it is, is it's like, okay, here's my revenue.
  • 00:59:12It's broken up by those sections.
  • 00:59:14But also, as that kind of the plus metric that I was talking about, what if I said, all of these users that came and didn't convert directly within the organic search channel, but came back through any other channel, but you were like the impetus for them discovering the brand.
  • 00:59:38That led to make a big number.
  • 00:59:41Now, again, I'm not saying that's mine.
  • 00:59:45I'm just saying it's not all of theirs.
  • 00:59:48And what it can do, especially early on in a campaign, is it can show value in a world where it's not directly attributed.
  • 01:00:00For instance, if we were to do a blog, You know, you're not going to expect revenue to come from that very often.
  • 01:00:07And then for like six months is an uphill battle where you're asking mom and dad for more and more money and you're getting less and less performance, it seems like.
  • 01:00:15But what if we could say that, you know, over that six months, you know, we got a couple thousand visits, couple hundred thousand visits, and yes, SEO only comes back at this.
  • 01:00:27But look, there's a touch point in this much money.
  • 01:00:32Somewhere in that journey, the blog played a role.
  • 01:00:36Now all of a sudden, when you're talking the big numbers, twenty grand for content or whatever it is feels like an absolute given.
  • 01:00:46And I just think that that's where we need to go.
  • 01:00:49And it's just because our data, unfortunately, isn't reliable enough to truly go in anymore and just say, I may do this much money.
  • 01:00:59And have you ever come across a attribution tool or data analytics tool or whatever that actually helped solve the whole like multi-touch attribution and the whole like media mix miracle.
  • 01:01:20Because there is definitely a big category of attribution and like marketing analytics tools out there that promise to basically help you solve that miracle, but I have not came across one that actually solved it.
  • 01:01:36And I agree with you.
  • 01:01:37The one thing that I should have said that I did not mention was to be able to do everything that I had just said, it relies on having a conversation before.
  • 01:01:50That's critical of just alignment on how we're going to measure because it's not about because first touch isn't right.
  • 01:01:58Last touch isn't right.
  • 01:01:59Multi-touch is just kind of a joke because it's somebody's best guess of calculating, you know, a fraction in between.
  • 01:02:06To your point, I don't know of anybody who has it down perfect.
  • 01:02:10They will become richer than rich when they do.
  • 01:02:14And then we don't even want to talk about like online to offline attribution because things get.
  • 01:02:20It's super crazy when you start talking about a store location and then you can go into loyalty points and we're not going to go there.
  • 01:02:29But if you can again, remember we are dealing with most SEO budgets are like single percentages of total paid search.
  • 01:02:39So what I try to do is like, God, this is kind of a bad analogy, but it's almost like a legal case.
  • 01:02:45It's like all I have to do is create like a shadow of doubt.
  • 01:02:50Like and then that person like gets off.
  • 01:02:52but I can kind of do.
  • 01:02:53the other thing too is when you're playing with like small dollars If I can just seed the idea that maybe this is how it's working.
  • 01:03:01I don't have the data But what do you think like?
  • 01:03:06so?
  • 01:03:06but again the the reason that I said that Having that conversation beforehand is so critical is because no leader ever wants to be given bad news and then be told about this because that comes off as an excuse.
  • 01:03:22Like you're rationalizing why it's okay to have negative performance.
  • 01:03:26Whereas if you come to the table day one and say, hey, we know attribution doesn't favor SEO in any way shape or form.
  • 01:03:35We know AI overviews are killing our clicks.
  • 01:03:38We know this ecosystem has gone well beyond our website.
  • 01:03:43Here's what I propose for unofficial... We will have your official reporting that levels up to your big number, all channels go in, but I would love to get your buy-in to have this second look and then walk them through it.
  • 01:04:00And most leaders are going to say, one, I just want to double check, you're not going to try to screw up the source of truth because every other channel seems to work pretty well that way.
  • 01:04:11And you say, great.
  • 01:04:12And then they're like, sure, let's do that.
  • 01:04:16And then what that does is it allows that consistency of kind of like dual measuring.
  • 01:04:22And in a world where official measuring, I'm using air quotes for those not looking, if or when that goes down, which we're going to see a lot more if we haven't already with like AIOs, what if that other unofficial metric is still supporting the narrative of success?
  • 01:04:42I think at worst, it gives you the benefit of the doubt and extends your runway.
  • 01:04:48And at best, like you have worked with these individuals, these leaders to buy into this.
  • 01:04:55So that is enough on its own to warrant those smaller budgets of total marketing budget.
  • 01:05:03And what would you say to people that say all of these like very like tries in creating channel specific attribution and measurements.
  • 01:05:19It basically just leads to analysis paralysis.
  • 01:05:23So we just like we lose ourselves in the data, whereas we should actually try to use these resources, the time and also like the brain power to do stuff that we are.
  • 01:05:38Confident that moves the needle.
  • 01:05:40I sometimes use the analogies analogy with people that in the whole pre on online marketing era where you basically had just very Like maybe you had a couple of data points like if you have this billboard there are like Ten thousand cars driving by it on a given day.
  • 01:06:00Yeah, exactly the eyeballs.
  • 01:06:02But then what most people would tend to for marketing is just conviction.
  • 01:06:05Like, do I have conviction that this message and like this visual, et cetera, actually resonates with my target group?
  • 01:06:13So what would you say to those people that I might be part of?
  • 01:06:20It's so funny because again, if we went back two years ago, I would call you out.
  • 01:06:25I'd be like, you're full of shit.
  • 01:06:27Like you're not doing your job and like you're making excuses to like, you know, justify it because dollar is king and queen.
  • 01:06:35But now this is where I ecrow because I do think that we have almost become polarized because the data was viewed at such a granular level.
  • 01:06:45So now between like cookies, you know, GA-IV, which just seems to always be a mess, like... Your data, even before you start slicing and dicing it, is not accurate.
  • 01:06:58It requires assumptions.
  • 01:06:59And I think to your point, that's where sitting up front and having that conversation and saying, we're going to spend five grand on the billboard.
  • 01:07:10We don't have a good way to truly measure the impact, but we're told that it has you a hundred thousand people that go through it.
  • 01:07:19And then, you know, the success metric is, Do we believe that that has a lift in the brand?
  • 01:07:26Maybe, you know, there's a, you know, counter that, you know, when people drive over it and you can say, well, we got ninety two thousand.
  • 01:07:34So like that is believable.
  • 01:07:36And our assumption is that, you know, what if even one percent converted?
  • 01:07:41You know, it's like, then you can get to numbers.
  • 01:07:44And all that to be said is like we're leaving a world where hardcore performance market or Nick is out, you know, saying, dollars or nothing.
  • 01:07:54Because I think we're going to have a really, really hard time justifying the level of spend, even though it's a small percent.
  • 01:08:01Four liters that I think things are getting so much more complicated.
  • 01:08:05The dollars are not that big.
  • 01:08:08The rewards are kind of big.
  • 01:08:12But if we take that much space up in the leader's head, she's going to be like, screw this, I'm just going to throw it to paid search because I know I'm getting four to one return.
  • 01:08:22So.
  • 01:08:22All that to be said is I think everything you said is where we need to go.
  • 01:08:26There needs to be logical reasoning.
  • 01:08:31I just think it's really, really critical to not align on that after you're trying to justify a performance going up or down.
  • 01:08:44Thanks for sharing that.
  • 01:08:50Yeah, of course.
  • 01:08:51Okay.
  • 01:08:52No, I just, I, I, I, a hundred percent.
  • 01:08:54I can share my opinion.
  • 01:08:55So I would say, so what we try to work with is a three level measurement where it's somehow similar to your like tier one, tier two, tier three.
  • 01:09:06So, um, For me, level one is the first level and not one in terms of priority number one.
  • 01:09:15So level three is what we actually want to go for.
  • 01:09:18So level one, what we look at is citation share, either of, so no matter if it's Chachibiti or AI overviews or AI mode, obviously still currently on Google, we don't have AI overviews for all of the SERPs, but I think there's a good argument.
  • 01:09:37that Google will eventually move to whatever search experience that looks like AI reviews, AI mode like combined.
  • 01:09:48So there will probably not be the classic ten blue links serve again.
  • 01:09:54So citation share either based on our own content or content on other sites, earned content, YouTube, Reddit, industry publications, where we are part of the conversation, so where we are mentioned.
  • 01:10:08So this is level one.
  • 01:10:10Then level two is brand mentions.
  • 01:10:13So how often is our brand actually mentioned in these conversations across prompts that we care about?
  • 01:10:20For these prompts, obviously, I know this is like the next big black box, and I think we would need another episode for that.
  • 01:10:31We try to have a lot of data sources that basically influence our decision on how to come up with these prompts.
  • 01:10:37So when some people basically just go into Profound or PKI or whatever tool they're using and then click on Suggest Prompts.
  • 01:10:45Don't do that.
  • 01:10:45It's not a good idea because they don't have the data to actually make good suggestions.
  • 01:10:51So we use audience research like mining sales transcripts, speaking to head of customer success, using user interview data from product teams, et cetera, et cetera, then query data from the search console, maybe SAMrush data, et cetera.
  • 01:11:10So having actually an understanding of What does our target group care about?
  • 01:11:15What do we believe how they would search?
  • 01:11:17And do we have data to validate that?
  • 01:11:19there's a demand for that?
  • 01:11:21Do we have data to validate the actual words they're using?
  • 01:11:24So speaking of search console, et cetera.
  • 01:11:29Yeah, brand mentions this is level two and then level three is actually a conversion.
  • 01:11:34So, and I see this.
  • 01:11:37as like it can be a mixture.
  • 01:11:39So for example, for e-commerce, it could be a signups for a newsletter or like email opt-ins and then also revenue.
  • 01:11:45And then it's obviously hard to differentiate between the signups you got for the newsletter or for whatever email opt-in mechanism you have.
  • 01:11:57Did these convert into revenue?
  • 01:11:59Then when you did like your winter sale, tracking this like, I mean, In theory, it sounds super simple, but who actually has the data to do that?
  • 01:12:10Not a lot of companies, so maybe the real big ones, but not a lot of them.
  • 01:12:14And then for sales lab models or B to B and service businesses, we basically look at leads, then we look at pipeline contribution, then we look at close one revenue, and ideally, Honestly, this is me painting a picture here of the future.
  • 01:12:31We are not there yet.
  • 01:12:33Ideally, we also have a grip on customer lifetime value because I think eventually the true north star is customer lifetime value and not the number of signups, etc.
  • 01:12:42And to have a good idea at least about where did the signups actually come from, we try to use last click, first click.
  • 01:12:53As far as it's available from GA-IV and HubSpot Pixel, for example, we also use self-reported attribution based on ideally, this is like my preferred version, a free text field that is required.
  • 01:13:07So no dropdown because it limits the creativity of people saying something in there.
  • 01:13:13So I had all created the kinds of stuff also for leads that we got as an agency that people put in there.
  • 01:13:19Like this guy told me about you and then I saw you on LinkedIn, like you can't really have this in.
  • 01:13:27quantitative data.
  • 01:13:29And then also what we do is, I don't know if it's an official term, we call it sales reported attribution.
  • 01:13:36So basically the person that's like on the discovery call or wherever, actually saying, hey, you know, it would be massively helpful for us to get a little bit of an idea of your research journey.
  • 01:13:45So like, where did you look and where did you find us?
  • 01:13:49And then sometimes, and it's funny, people just so at one occasion, somebody just put a smiley.
  • 01:13:56How do you know about us form on the website?
  • 01:13:59And then when the SDR or account executive actually asked them, then it came out that they found the company via a perplexity research.
  • 01:14:09You know, and this is also why we have like these different levels.
  • 01:14:12And it's always also the team sometimes hates me for that, that I constantly push them to be very clear that it's like this very, as you said earlier, convoluted answer.
  • 01:14:22But there's like a very distinctive person purpose for all of these different data points to ensure that you get the best picture possible.
  • 01:14:32And it's still imperfect.
  • 01:14:33But yeah, these are these are my thoughts on that.
  • 01:14:37So Nick, I'm gonna do your job for you, because this is like a full circle moment.
  • 01:14:43You know, we kicked off by talking about what are the risks for agency, and I kind of said there's the ones that want to put the effort in, and the ones that don't.
  • 01:14:52Because everything you just said there, that's a lot of work, and a lot of people would say, that's not SEO.
  • 01:15:03But that's what SEO is today.
  • 01:15:07Yeah, and because if you're not gonna go that level you're either gonna be guessing or lying for your narrative.
  • 01:15:19Yeah, and honestly so if I if I told you that we we were just creating like The documentation internally for our audience research framework and like the different levels of Who we want to talk to and why.
  • 01:15:34like we we even made distinctions between so we can talk to individual sales team members at our clients.
  • 01:15:42It could be helpful because they're more available.
  • 01:15:45Like it's easier to talk to them than ahead of sales, but they only have like their... I'm not meaning this negatively, but their limited view on the leads they get.
  • 01:15:55But then we could also talk to the head of sales.
  • 01:15:58that might be a little bit detached from the day-to-day, but they have maybe an own overview over the different conversations.
  • 01:16:05And then the same goes for customer success.
  • 01:16:07So why should we talk to sales?
  • 01:16:09Because we want to get a better grip on the prospects and pre-sale.
  • 01:16:12And then customer success actually helps us to understand what customers get most value from these products and why and like where patterns etc.
  • 01:16:21and this enables us to even if we do not do it explicitly like optimize towards customer lifetime value because we just get a better understanding of where people get the most value from.
  • 01:16:33and if like it's a value exchange if people get more value from specific types of the product and we try to focus our SAO efforts more on these parts of the product, then naturally we will attract customers that will bring more value to the company also because they stay longer, etc.
  • 01:16:52And then mining stuff on Reddit with Reddit answers, top converting search terms on Google ads, all of that stuff.
  • 01:17:02So this is also something where I would say you I don't actually know how we came up with the vision for that, but I just think that there are certain points always where we are just very clear with ourselves on, do we actually have an answer to that question?
  • 01:17:25So are we actually able to answer the question, what parts of the product does somebody get the most value from?
  • 01:17:32And if we do not have the answer, we do not opt to, yeah, but maybe it doesn't matter.
  • 01:17:37We go the route of Okay, we have to like pull up the sleeve and like put in the work to get a decent answer because we think it will be massively beneficial for the work we can do for the client.
  • 01:17:50And then obviously we're not perfect.
  • 01:17:52Yeah, just wanted to say we're not perfect.
  • 01:17:54We like this work in progress.
  • 01:17:56We're doing like progress every day.
  • 01:17:59But yeah, this is something that is like very top of mind for me currently because we started in twenty twenty six with a lot of like we have a lot of thoughts, etc.
  • 01:18:09Let's really like get this into operation as quickly as possible because some of that was already floating around Some of it was just in our minds and now like we have kicked off the year with like We are really making big steps in progress every week and it feels like it feels good also to have someone like you Confirm us a little bit at least in the direction.
  • 01:18:35That's exactly what I was just gonna say though is you guys are putting action to kind of what I was suggesting as well, because at the end of the day, we only have so much information that we know definitively.
  • 01:18:52I think all of us can agree, whether you're a client or the intern, we have a lot more questions than anybody's got the answers for.
  • 01:19:02So when you can go in and talk to that leader, And then she understands, again, before we're ever going to talk about performance, that, yep, here are those hard KPIs as we would normally do it.
  • 01:19:14These will be what they are, and we promise to report on them.
  • 01:19:18But here is our process for how we're going to kind of remove the black box.
  • 01:19:25It's not going to give us hardcore, one hundred percent certainty data, but it's going to be strong enough.
  • 01:19:33where we can draw a correlation that makes sense.
  • 01:19:38And again, that doesn't live on its own, but also the hard data doesn't live on its own.
  • 01:19:43And I think that's where we're going now.
  • 01:19:46And I think leaders that are open to that conversation will continue to find a lot of success in this organic realm that is not just Google Now.
  • 01:19:58Like you said, it's the LLMs, it's Reddit.
  • 01:20:01And I think those that... are very stuck on saying my organic is measured like my paid.
  • 01:20:10I think they're going to give up on the channel.
  • 01:20:15I think I want to spend a couple of minutes still talking about two other passion projects you have actually worked on.
  • 01:20:25And I think we should.
  • 01:20:29Definitely not let them fall through the cracks here.
  • 01:20:32So I'm obviously speaking about SEOjobs.com and PPCjobs.com.
  • 01:20:37Can you give us a little behind the scenes, what made you decide to build them?
  • 01:20:42Yes, so remember at the very beginning of this podcast, you asked for my story, and I specifically said make kind of an annotation right here when I was looking at LinkedIn.
  • 01:20:54career builder, all the junkie big sites, or at least junkie for the SEO.
  • 01:21:00I had this opportunity after I went out on my own, because of course it's too late for me.
  • 01:21:06But I basically had this opportunity to join the original owner to build this site.
  • 01:21:12And then I had the opportunity to buy it.
  • 01:21:16He wanted to jump into a different project.
  • 01:21:18But I'm passionate because I know what it's like to have that feeling of stress and anxiety, trying to find jobs that are of quality, finding jobs that are real.
  • 01:21:35And on the other end, I can't be the only one in my career that has not left, even though I knew I needed to, but just because I wasn't seeing the right jobs.
  • 01:21:48Now, I may not have been putting the right effort into it, but so I built.
  • 01:21:54or I should say I continued building upon what I wanted to exist back when I needed it most.
  • 01:22:04And I feel that that empowers me to be like a really good voice behind it.
  • 01:22:10Like if you look at the like our mission page on SEOjobs.com, it literally starts with like, I've been fired.
  • 01:22:19And it's not like to try to feel bad for me.
  • 01:22:23It's just more like, Wow, like you and me, we're the same.
  • 01:22:27Like nobody wants to admit that they got bad marks or that they got fired or, you know, they lost a promotion.
  • 01:22:36But to be able to make that connection, I just feel like that's allowing people to kind of trust me to build something that they are supporting.
  • 01:22:47Because this project does not succeed without the industry supporting it.
  • 01:22:52Like this is not an affiliate site, this is not AdSense site where I can trick Google because I don't even care about Google traffic.
  • 01:23:00Fifty percent of my traffic every month is direct traffic.
  • 01:23:06So it's a fun project.
  • 01:23:09But a lot of people would probably thought in the beginning, hey, there are these big job platforms like Indeed, Stepstone, No matter.
  • 01:23:19maybe there are specific other ones and different geographies, definitely also LinkedIn.
  • 01:23:25So why should you like create a new job board?
  • 01:23:29Like this is a lot of effort.
  • 01:23:31Do you really think that anybody would care?
  • 01:23:34Again, obviously you did it and obviously it's a great success.
  • 01:23:38But like what made you like be immune to?
  • 01:23:43maybe you also had this voice like in the back of your head, but why didn't you care?
  • 01:23:49Yeah, well, I think at first, I'm not a very good businessman in this aspect.
  • 01:23:56I saw it just as an opportunity and a significant gap in our industry.
  • 01:24:02SEO, paid media, all this.
  • 01:24:04We are amazing at creating really good resources.
  • 01:24:07You can learn everything from A to Y on YouTube.
  • 01:24:12But when it came down to, okay, now where do I go get that job?
  • 01:24:17If you're starting at Indeed or any of these, like, oh, I just feel like that's such a miss.
  • 01:24:24And then so what it just came down to is I talk to people who are hiring and I hear two main pain points regularly.
  • 01:24:38One is enter big job board name here.
  • 01:24:43is super expensive.
  • 01:24:44Last time it cost me twelve hundred bucks, you know, just to have my listing the way that I needed it and to get to the right people.
  • 01:24:52And then they go, okay, but you know what?
  • 01:24:54If I get somebody, that's totally worth it.
  • 01:24:56The bigger issue is the fact that when you have these large platforms like a LinkedIn and whatnot, you get thousands of applicants.
  • 01:25:09You know, I'm sure you've had this experience like the like automatic apply now is like the worst thing that's been created from an actual like business owners perspective.
  • 01:25:20It's great for those metrics we talked about for all these.
  • 01:25:24So my sales pitch, if there is any, is one, like I know this industry.
  • 01:25:32It's like I'm bringing my friends in every single day to see these jobs.
  • 01:25:36So they're real people.
  • 01:25:38And two, I never pretend that I'm going to provide nearly the amount of applicants as I can indeed or LinkedIn.
  • 01:25:48But I do ask them, okay, you have this one role.
  • 01:25:52How many people are you looking to hire?
  • 01:25:54And they'll say one.
  • 01:25:56And I said, what if I sent you fifteen people and five of them are like perfect matches?
  • 01:26:03Like if you had five roles, you'd hire all of them.
  • 01:26:06Like, does that make me less valuable?
  • 01:26:10I would argue that it makes me more valuable because you're not looking to hire a twenty-five and I gave you fifteen.
  • 01:26:17You're looking for one.
  • 01:26:18So efficiency has cost.
  • 01:26:20And that just, or sorry, efficiency has value.
  • 01:26:23And then right now, I mean, I sure it'll increase over time, but the most expensive package is a hundred and forty nine dollars.
  • 01:26:32And that's for ninety days listing premium visibility in our newsletter.
  • 01:26:40It just tries to check all the boxes when possible.
  • 01:26:44I think you should actually double the price.
  • 01:26:47So sorry for everybody hiring that.
  • 01:26:50maybe if Nick actually does it, but you are compared to.
  • 01:26:54So actually, you know, sometimes price also gives you a sense of value.
  • 01:27:00Like there are these watches that cost like five thousand euros, et cetera.
  • 01:27:05And obviously there's also a lot of manufacturing behind it, blah, blah, blah.
  • 01:27:10It's somehow also the exclusiveness comes from the high price and I feel like people might even think like.
  • 01:27:22can this actually help me hire the roles if you compare your price point to not even just a step zone or indeed but like to a headhunter or like to these like active sourcing platforms.
  • 01:27:37So there's, for example, one very, very successful company in Germany.
  • 01:27:41I think they, they have like a talent pool, et cetera.
  • 01:27:45And like, it's a, it's a, it's a very great product, but they charge, I think, is it either one?
  • 01:27:55Let's say it's one gross salary.
  • 01:27:59So.
  • 01:28:00Yeah, it's the traditional recruiter approach.
  • 01:28:01Yeah.
  • 01:28:01Yeah.
  • 01:28:04Yeah.
  • 01:28:04So, and I mean, In the end, you could say, okay, you don't have a guarantee that you hire someone from your platform, but let's be honest, it's a super specific platform for dedicated job profits.
  • 01:28:20It's not like, okay, you can look for a janitor role and then an SEO role and then whatever role, but it's like SEO purely or PVC purely.
  • 01:28:32So I think actually you should at least charge.
  • 01:28:37And I'm kind of going that direction.
  • 01:28:39I feel like there's a lot of goodwill that I want to extend to the industry.
  • 01:28:45that allowed me to kind of build it.
  • 01:28:47I will increase prices over time because like you said, it's important and you don't want to make it the right option for everybody.
  • 01:28:55But the one thing that I will say is you are absolutely right.
  • 01:28:58I cannot guarantee that you'll hire somebody.
  • 01:29:02But the one guarantee I really do like and I stand by is if it doesn't work the way that you want it, there's no additional cost to me or you now.
  • 01:29:13I'm going to rerun that sucker.
  • 01:29:14If you need to run it for three years before you find your perfect person, great.
  • 01:29:19I'm probably going to ask you why you can't make a hire, but that's a whole nother conversation.
  • 01:29:26And I think again, I am a big fan of doing what I think is right.
  • 01:29:33versus doing what I think can make me the fastest buck.
  • 01:29:39I will end up probably leaving lots of millions of dollars on the table in my lifetime.
  • 01:29:45But for me, it all comes down to like, do I feel good at the end of the night when I'm putting my head on my pillow?
  • 01:29:51So yes, I've thought about putting it all up to two ninety nine and like literally almost did it at the start of the year.
  • 01:29:58And I was just like, you know what?
  • 01:30:00I have some other plans.
  • 01:30:01Let's see if I can hit some of these growth targets.
  • 01:30:04And then I will do it.
  • 01:30:06And again, that makes me feel good.
  • 01:30:08If I can make people feel like they're getting a huge win even at four hundred bucks, six hundred bucks, whatever it is.
  • 01:30:14I just want everybody to win.
  • 01:30:15Like that's what's important to me.
  • 01:30:18And that's the passion behind it.
  • 01:30:20Because anybody running this as a business would have jacked us up immediately.
  • 01:30:24And I'm thinking about it through the lens of seven years old or seven years ago, Nick.
  • 01:30:31panicking about how he's feeding his kids.
  • 01:30:35Got it.
  • 01:30:37Nick, wrapping up the conversation a little bit, because we already talked through a lot of stuff.
  • 01:30:43I want to, like I always have, and I say this all the time, I always have like three goals for this podcast.
  • 01:30:49I wanted to be educating, check.
  • 01:30:54I wanted to be entertaining, also check.
  • 01:30:57And then the last piece is always, I want to make it actionable.
  • 01:31:01And I think we somehow also already managed to do that, but I think sometimes you just have to like like summarize things again or like make it really compact.
  • 01:31:13So I want to ask you if you were advising someone now today with all your knowledge accumulated over the years, who's considering going from in-house to an SEO consultant or maybe even forced to do that due to being laid off, what would be your top two to three pieces of advice?
  • 01:31:38My very first one would be, your network is your net worth.
  • 01:31:46I don't know who told me that at one point in time, but it's true.
  • 01:31:51I could probably attribute eighty percent of my revenue to who I know in the industry that refers work to me.
  • 01:31:59And twenty percent goes back to the LinkedIn and the newsletter and all that kind of stuff.
  • 01:32:04So invest in your network.
  • 01:32:06Go to that event.
  • 01:32:08I know it's uncomfortable.
  • 01:32:10Shake hands.
  • 01:32:11Say hi.
  • 01:32:12Ask questions.
  • 01:32:13And then find them on LinkedIn and just follow up and just say, hey, I really appreciate the, you know, two minute conversation we had.
  • 01:32:20And you'll be shocked at like that'll boomerang around.
  • 01:32:24I guarantee you.
  • 01:32:26So that's the first thing is like.
  • 01:32:28Don't network only when you need something.
  • 01:32:30Network all the time and build up your roster of friends and colleagues.
  • 01:32:37Number two, a lot of people think, oh, I don't know enough about technical SEO.
  • 01:32:42I don't know enough about server logs and all this kind of stuff.
  • 01:32:45And it gives them paralysis.
  • 01:32:49Remember what I told earlier about when I was interviewing people?
  • 01:32:54If you can talk... just even fairly well, coherently, that already puts you above a lot of candidates.
  • 01:33:06And I don't say that to like dog on our industry, but I always joke that we're kind of like the cousin of the developers.
  • 01:33:13Developers are notorious for not having, you know, very good person, personable skills, but their job is mostly behind the scene.
  • 01:33:23So, but with SEO, while we can do some more technical stuff, it very much is reliant on being able to build relationships and navigating conversations and being able to persuade people.
  • 01:33:37And then I think the last thing that I would say, and it sounds cliche is, like, don't give up and don't listen to what anybody else says.
  • 01:33:50Like, I know that sounds, it's so much easier than said than done, but SEO industry specifically, we have a habit of making these absolute statements like, no follow does not provide value ever any know how.
  • 01:34:09Run your own tests.
  • 01:34:11I talked to people, I used to say to people that I felt very strongly that H ones provide zero value and I got ridiculed.
  • 01:34:20Absolutely.
  • 01:34:21I mean, we're talking of laughed at by like team members.
  • 01:34:25And then like, Four years later, I was still at the same company.
  • 01:34:28John Mueller said in like his presentation, he's like, nope, like headers don't really matter.
  • 01:34:34It's like how you're structuring the page and the value you have with it.
  • 01:34:38And I turned around and looked at like my boss and his jaw was on the ground.
  • 01:34:44Take those POVs.
  • 01:34:46I'm not saying be argumentative for the sake of it, but you know, come up with your own answers.
  • 01:34:51Test, learn.
  • 01:34:53That wasn't quick.
  • 01:34:54But just to recap, building network, talk well, learn, test, learn, learn, learn.
  • 01:35:04Be one step ahead.
  • 01:35:06Nick, that's very strong.
  • 01:35:09I have one final question for you.
  • 01:35:13This one is, what didn't we talk about that we should have talked about?
  • 01:35:20I think we talked about SEO jobs a ton and we touched on the direction of agencies.
  • 01:35:27But I think that the industry as a whole is still scared about.
  • 01:35:34is SEO dying.
  • 01:35:35So what is the trajectory of SEO jobs?
  • 01:35:39Not my site, but just the career as a whole.
  • 01:35:42And the answer to that is this time last year, it was really scary.
  • 01:35:47I mean, the site had its all time high in traffic because the demand for a job was that high.
  • 01:35:56The inventory was low.
  • 01:36:00And again, I'll be a little bit vulnerable here.
  • 01:36:03Like my mental state kind of went to hell because the amount of messages that I got from people saying, I got fired, my whole team was let go, like they outsourced, they did AI on top of LinkedIn where everyone's like, Hey, everybody, I need a new job.
  • 01:36:23Like it was rough.
  • 01:36:25And then it was like Q four started and I swear like all these marketing leaders were like, oh shoot, I have a use it or lose it budget.
  • 01:36:33And then they started hiring again.
  • 01:36:36And I attribute this all to people.
  • 01:36:40We all just don't know.
  • 01:36:40we said we have more questions than answers.
  • 01:36:43And I think a lot of people were very hesitant.
  • 01:36:45And I can even say with my own consulting agreements, people don't want to commit to SEO for a year at a time.
  • 01:36:53If there's a possibility that AILLMs are taking over the world, I want to do that.
  • 01:36:59And so I think a lot of people just kind of sat on their hands and it's like, well, I'm going to let like the early adopters learn and then I'll be the second wave.
  • 01:37:07And we're still stuck in this messy middle.
  • 01:37:09So that's the only thing that I would have added.
  • 01:37:13And again, I want to just reiterate.
  • 01:37:16I keep using the calligraphy example over and over.
  • 01:37:21Even if SEO dies, like, There is always work in every angle industry skillset for the one percent.
  • 01:37:32So are you in the one percent?
  • 01:37:36Only you can answer that.
  • 01:37:39That's a nice cliffhanger question.
  • 01:37:43Nick, it has been a blast.
  • 01:37:44A really great conversation.
  • 01:37:46Thanks so much for sharing so much of the knowledge that you usually keep behind a paywall.
  • 01:37:52Not for the SEO for lunch.
  • 01:37:53This newsletter is completely free.
  • 01:37:56At least up until now.
  • 01:37:58Maybe I inspired Nick today to raise prices across the board.
  • 01:38:04Don't blame me, actually.
  • 01:38:05It's a value exchange.
  • 01:38:07I think there's more to gain than to pay.
  • 01:38:12But thanks so much for making the time.
  • 01:38:14I really appreciate it.
  • 01:38:15I really appreciate all the knowledge you shared.
  • 01:38:20This was a lot of fun, at least for me.
  • 01:38:23And I hope also for people, if people want to follow around, like we obviously going to put the SEO for lunch link in the description, the SEO jobs links in the description, the PPC jobs in the description, something you mentioned in the beginning that I should put into the description, but I lost it now.
  • 01:38:44Oh, I wrote up the story of like my first year going out on my own.
  • 01:38:48Yeah,
  • 01:38:48maybe you can send this over.
  • 01:38:49I'll send that too.
  • 01:38:50You can also put this in the description.
  • 01:38:52What else should we put into the description?
  • 01:38:55You know what?
  • 01:38:56If Morty Oberstein is listening to this, he always gives me a hard time.
  • 01:39:01He's like, I'm always terrified to have you on my show because your intro is eight hundred words long because you were involved with so much.
  • 01:39:09So I will just leave it by saying, you know, go check out nickleroy.com.
  • 01:39:14I have all my socials there.
  • 01:39:17I love hanging out with people and connecting.
  • 01:39:20Like I said, your network is everything.
  • 01:39:22So say hi.
  • 01:39:24Sounds great.
  • 01:39:25Nick, thanks so much.
  • 01:39:27Hope to catch up soon.
  • 01:39:28And people go follow Nick, give a like, give a subscribe.
  • 01:39:33It doesn't cost anything.
  • 01:39:34And if you want to hire in SEO or in PPC, definitely consider Nick's platforms because it's actually, it has visibility worldwide.
  • 01:39:46So there's a high chance that you can actually find pretty qualified candidates on there.
  • 01:39:52Nick, thanks so much.
  • 01:39:54Thank you, appreciate you.
  • 01:39:56Bye-bye.